Various treatment appliances are known in particular from the field of dentistry, in which both treatment appliances having mechanical treatment elements, such as a drill, and treatment appliances which use a laser beam instead of the mechanical treatment elements are used.
Depending on the field of application, it is advantageous or necessary to illuminate the area to be treated, in order to create suitable lighting conditions for the operator of the appliances. Particularly in areas where access is difficult, as is the case especially in the field of dentistry, it is frequently difficult to illuminate the area to be treated using external illumination sources, in particular because the treatment or processing appliance, and/or the operator himself, shadows the area to be treated.
Appliances are therefore known from the prior art in which illumination apparatuses which are designed integrally with the treatment appliance are provided. By way of example, one prior art reference discloses a dentistry handpiece, which has a treatment head to which a mechanical treatment tool is fitted. The handpiece furthermore has an optical fiber, which is passed through the handpiece and is passed out of the handpiece at the side, close to the treatment tool, so that the treatment tool as well as the area to be treated can be illuminated by means of an illuminating light source.
Another prior art reference discloses a tartar removal tool, which, has a treatment tool in a front region, in this case a tartar removal tool, which is caused to oscillate. An optical fiber is passed through the handpiece in the apparatus disclosed in this document as well, with the optical fiber opening in the vicinity of the treatment tool, and being intended to illuminate the area to be treated, by means of an illuminating light source.
The known illumination systems according to the prior art have the disadvantage that the supply for the optical fiber is relatively complex and hence costly, with the optical fiber also being relatively sensitive, which, over the course of the life of a corresponding appliance, can lead to decreases in the illumination light intensity that is available. Furthermore, if the optical fiber is destroyed, the entire optical fiber must be replaced, which is highly costly or, in some circumstances, is no longer financially possible at all.
Furthermore, depending on the treatment tool, the illumination of the area to be treated is not optimum, as is the case especially with drills, in which the light is supplied through an optical fiber fitted at the side.
A further prior art reference discloses a method and an apparatus for dose measurements for photocoagulation, in which monochromatic laser light coming from a laser, on the one hand, and light from a lamp for object illumination, on the other hand, are passed via a chromatic beam splitter onto a sample, with the chromatic beam splitter being permeable to the light from the lamp for object illumination, that is to say having a transmitting effect, while the beam splitter acts as a reflector for the laser light. Fluorescent light emerging from the sample is at least partially emitted through a beam splitter, which is transparent for this fluorescence light but is reflective for the light from the lamp for object illumination, so that at least a portion of the fluorescence light can be evaluated using a photomultiplier.
A further prior art reference discloses a laser apparatus in which, in addition to a laser diode for producing laser light, there is also a diode for producing a so-called “guide light”. The light from the two light sources is also in this case injected via a monochromatic beam splitter, with the beam splitter being completely reflective for the so-called guide light.
These systems according to the prior art have, in particular, the disadvantage that, in the case where the radiation produced during the treatment process or the spectroscopic light is in a wavelength band, which corresponds to the wavelength band of the illuminating light, or overlaps it, diagnosis or analysis is impossible, or is feasible only with very great difficulty, especially in the case of weak radiation and/or weak spectroscopic light, since the spectroscopic light cannot be emitted, or can be emitted only inadequately, in the at least overlapping wavelength band.
One object of the present invention is thus to provide a laser treatment appliance having an illumination system, which avoids the abovementioned disadvantages of the prior art and, in particular, provides an effective illumination system and an effective capability for diagnosis or analysis of the treatment process, in a simple and cost-effective manner.
This object is achieved by a laser treatment appliance with the particularly advantageous embodiments of the laser treat appliance according to the invention.